Business

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, countries all over the world suffered dire consequences. The irresponsibility of the globe’s biggest banking institutions, institutional investors, regulators, and consumers plunged economies in the United States, Europe, and Asia into a panic. The blame lies with those who exercised poor judgment in their creation and sale of shoddy derivative assets, but also with regulators for perpetuating a broken system of opacity.

As part of the macro forecast in his just released 2018 Credit Outlook (more on that in a subsequent post), DB's Jim Reid first looks back at the almost concluded 2017 and muses that "whichever way you cut it, it’s likely that 2017 will go down as one of, if not the least, volatile year ever for the vast majority of asset classes. The recent sell-off in early/mid November has been a bit of a wake-up call but overall this remains a blip." In fact, it makes him wonder if 2017 was "the most boring year ever?"

While bricks and mortar retailers and malls may have decided to put their aggressive discounts on hold for the time being, seemingly content with their market share (losses), online retailers - and one in particular - continue to make staggering gains.

Wal-Mart's in-store prices have long been the lowest in the retail industry after decades of building a massive store footprint and subsequently beating vendors into submission.  That said, with brick-and-mortar sales continually being eroded by online sales, pricing dominance against Amazon is becoming far more important than in-store dominance against the likes of Target.

To that end, as Reuters points out today, Wal-Mart is seemingly embracing a new pricing war with Amazon this holiday season and now sports online prices that are nearly on par with the online retailing giant.

With trading volume crashing last week and no one left in markets but Johnny 5 and VIX-selling Target employees, perhaps the signals from 'other' professional markets mean more than the record highs...

Remember last week was the most seasonaly bullish period of the year and how critical it is that stocks surge to hold confidence into Black Friday and Cyber Monday...

Bonds ain't buying it...

FX Carry has given up...

And why is safe haven gold bid if everything is so awesome...

Trade Accordingly.